The Solemnity of
the Immaculate Conception
Dear
brothers and sisters,
Every
good parent or teacher makes use – from time to time – of an uncomfortable
question to point out the wrongdoing of a child or pupil. Is this not what the
Lord God did today when he “called out to the man and asked him, ‘Where are
you’” (Genesis 3:9)? It cannot be held that God did not know Adam’s physical
location; to make such a claim of the omniscient Creator would be absurd. It
is, rather, as Saint Ambrose says: the Lord poses “not a question, but a
reproof.”[1]
It is as if God asks of Adam, “From what condition of goodness, beatitude and
grace … have you fallen into this state of misery? You have forsaken eternal
life. You have entombed yourself in the ways of sin and death.”
The
Church’s tradition calls this forsaking of eternal life the original sin by
which
man preferred himself to God and by that
very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the
requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good.
Constituted in a state of original holiness, man was destined to be fully
“divinized” by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to “be like God,”
but “without God, before God, and not in accordance with God.”[2]
It
is this same forsaking of eternal life, this same original sin, that each one
of us has inherited from Adam and Eve, our first parents. This is why Saint
Paul says that “sin came into the world through one man and death through sin,
and so death spread to all men because all men have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
If
we spend even a small amount of time considering our own sinfulness, we know
the effects of this original sin all too well. “It is a deprivation of original
holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is
wounded in the natural powers proper to it; subject to ignorance, suffering,
and the dominion of death; and inclined to sin.”[3]
It is this inclination toward sin from which each of us suffers and why Saint
Augustine famously called us walking fomes
peccati, walking tinderboxes of sin.[4]
This
seems to us a strange message to hear as we find ourselves in the midst of our
preparations for Christmas. We expect to hear a more hopeful and joyful
message, forgetting that “oft hope is born, when all is forlorn.”[5]
The truth of our fallen and sinful condition lies at the heart of the Archangel
Gabriel’s announcement to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “Behold, you will conceive
in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus” (Luke 1:31). When
Gabriel spoke to Saint Joseph, he told the husband of Mary to name her child
Jesus “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
The
Archangel’s announcements to both Saint Joseph and to Holy Mary come as the
great and long-awaited prophecy which the Lord God said that vile and wicked
serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
offspring and hers” (Genesis 3:15). Christ Jesus, the offspring of Mary, the
second Eve and whose Birth we celebrate at Christmas, struck at the serpent and
defeated him with the weapon of the Cross. This is why Saint Paul says “as one
man’s trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of
righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men” (Romans 5:18). The
message of our sinful condition, then, and of our salvation from it in Christ,
lies at the heart of the Advent message; to ignore this salvation from sin and
death, is to rob Christmas of its beauty, of its wonder, and of its joy.
Today
we celebrate a foundational aspect in the life of one of those whom Jesus saved
from sin as we give thanks to God for the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. It was not until 1854 that Mother Church finally defined what had
long been held and believed by the faithful when Pope Pius IX solemnly
declared, “the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception,
was, by a unique grace and privilege of Almighty God in view of the merits of
Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, preserved exempt from all stain of
original sin.”[6]
Because of her role as the Mother of God and in order to prepare a worthy ark
for the Word made Flesh, “Mary benefited first of all and uniquely from
Christ’s victory over sin: she was persevered from all stain of original sin
and by a special grace committed no sin of any kind during her whole earthly
life.”[7]
It is this preservation from original sin and from its effects that the Church
calls Mary’s “previent grace,” the grace given to Mary before her acceptance of
the divine plan because she accepted
the divine plan.[8]
Mary, then, “is not merely the greatest of the saints but something altogether
different and unique.”[9]
You
and I, of course, have not been so graced. The Lord still calls out to us, asking,
“Are you trapped in the imagined godlikeness that the serpent falsely promised
you?”[10]
His simple question, “Where are you?” is really an invitation for us “to make
admission of [our] faults” and be reconciled to God so we might lift our eyes
towards him and gaze upon the beauty of his face.[11]
Like
Adam and Eve, we are often hesitant to admit our sin to the Lord; we hide from
him and so deprive ourselves of his presence. But the Lord, in his infinite
mercy, does not abandon us; rather, he sent his Son, born of the Virgin Mary,
to call out to us, “From what condition of goodness, beatitude and grace … have
you fallen into this state of misery? You have forsaken eternal life. You have
entombed yourself in the ways of sin and death. Let me lead you forth into the
kingdom of light” (cf. Colossians 1:13).
Mary
shows us how to listen to the call of the Lord, how to give a generous response
to him, and how to entrust ourselves entirely to the Lord’s loving mercy so
that we might no longer live in a miserable condition. In these days of Advent,
she calls us to place ourselves “within the orbit of her holy life.”[12]
She desires to enfold us within the mantle of her love and to look upon us as
our Mother (cf. John 19:27). It is within the orbit of Mary’s holy life that
the disciple of Jesus wishes to enter; “here he wants to dwell, to breathe, to
become quiet, and to receive comfort and strength to continue his life with
renewed courage.”[13]
Let each of us strive to wait with Mary so that we might welcome her Child when
he comes and say with her, “May it be done to me according to your word” and
live a life “holy and without blemish before him” (Luke 1:38; Ephesians 1:4).
Amen.
[1] Saint Ambrose of Milan, De Paradiso, 14.70. In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture,
Old Testament Vol. I: Genesis 1-11. Andrew Louth, ed. (Downers Grove, Illinois:
Inter Varsity Press, 2001), 84.
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 398. Emphasis original.
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405.
[4] Saint Augustine of Hippo, De Continentia, 3.
[5] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King: Being the Third Part
of The Lord of the Rings, 5.9, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994), 859.
[6] Pope Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus.
[7] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 411.
[8] Roman Missal, Prayer Over the Offerings of the Mass for Solemnity
of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
[9] Romano Guardini, The Art of Praying: The Principles and Methods
of Christian Prayer. Leopold of Loewenstein-Wertheim, trans. (Manchester,
New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press), 155.
[10] Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis, 2.26.1. In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture,
Old Testament Vol. I, 84.
[11] Saint John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis, 17.22. In ibid., 85.
[12] Romano Guardini, The Art of Praying, 159.
[13] Ibid.
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